In general, an air conditioner is divided into an indoor unit and an outdoor unit, the indoor unit is installed indoors, the outdoor unit is installed outdoors, and the indoor unit and the outdoor unit are connected with each other through pipes and wiring.
FIG. 1 is a longitudinal-sectional view illustrating an indoor unit of a general panel type air conditioner.
As depicted in FIG. 1, the indoor unit of the general panel type air conditioner includes a casing 3 having a suction hole 1 at the top and a discharge hole 2 at the bottom; a heat exchanger 4 installed in the casing 3; a fan 5 installed at the rear of the heat exchanger 4; and a plasma air dust collector 10 installed at the front of the heat exchanger 4.
In the indoor unit of the general panel type air conditioner, warm air in a room is sucked into the casing 3 through the suction hole 1 by the operation of the fan 5, the sucked warm air is heat-exchanged into cool air and is discharged to the outside of the casing 3.
Herein, before the sucked warm air reaches to the heat exchanger 4, the air dust collector 10 purifies air by collecting dust in the sucked warm air in order to provide fresh air into the room.
FIG. 2 is an exploded-perspective view illustrating the conventional plasma air dust collector, and FIG. 3 is a combined-perspective view illustrating the conventional plasma air dust collector.
As depicted in FIGS. 2 and 3, the conventional air dust collector 10 includes a front casing 12 having plural paths 11 for passing air; a rear casing 14 having a certain internal space by being combined with the front casing 11 and having plural paths 13; each discharge electrode 15 arranged in the rear casing 14 in the length direction at regular intervals to generate discharge when a high voltage is applied; and each dust collecting electrode 16 arranged between the discharge electrodes 15 to collect dust when a high voltage is applied.
The operation of the conventional plasma air dust collector will be described.
As depicted in FIG. 5, when a high voltage is applied to the discharge electrode 15 and the dust collecting electrode 16, discharge plasma occurs between the discharge electrode 15 and the dust collecting electrode 16, dust particles passing between the dust collecting electrodes 16 are electrified by storing electric field and discharge plasma, and the electrified dust particles are collected on the dust collecting electrode 16 by the Coulomb's law.
However, in the compact structure or high performance aspect, the conventional plasma air dust collector has following problems.
First, because the discharge electrode 15 and the dust collecting electrode 16 are installed in the front and rear casings 12, 14, it is difficult to achieve a compact body.
Second, because the dust collecting electrode 16 is formed as a plate shape and dust collecting is performed on only the internal surface thereof dust collecting efficiency can not be improved.